


nine in the afternoon

by strictlysomething



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Smallville, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Amnesia, Bruce Wants to Punch Lex in the Face, Clark Just Wants Everyone to Be Happy, Gen, Lex Wants Everything, Minor Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-03-09 23:18:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13491909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strictlysomething/pseuds/strictlysomething
Summary: Superman dies on a gray Tuesday and the world weeps. Clark Kent wakes up on a Friday and Lex Luthor smiles for the first time in two years.





	1. revival

**Author's Note:**

> Haven't written anything remotely put together in years, so this has been a surprise for everyone involved. I'm estimating ~~nine or ten chapters (hoping for at least a good 40k)~~ and I'm not going to lie, some of it might get angsty. The appropriate tags for characters and feels will be added as this develops, I'm sure.
> 
> Update: As of chapter 5, probably pushing the est. word count to 60k to be safe.

Electricity spirals into the emptiness and pulls him out kicking and screaming. Where there had been nothing, existence becomes liquid flame that sears through his veins. It pulses in thin, uneven arcs that rattle in his chest and taper off slowly.

He burns and writhes and feels the pressure of constricted lungs that scream for oxygen but can’t seem take a breath - there’s a weight on his chest that just won’t leave.

Another jolt of fire spreads from the center of his being to hands and feet and the hollow pulse of a straining heart beats loudly in his ears. It’s terrible and shuddering and it can’t last.

The weight of the world holds him down. It pulls across his chest, begging to be released. His body tells him to move but wave after wave of convulsions hold him in place, shattering muscle and bone and leaving behind dust and ruin. His heart, what remains of it after all this time, follows along slowly, an agonizing drag into another beat, two beats, a third before it stutters and stops completely.

His last thought is that he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, before the fire flickers out and darkness folds in.

* * *

 

A surge of energy slams into his chest. He gasps awake, vision returning in a flare of white and red. His body convulses at the sudden revival, his lungs shudder, his chest feels ripped open.

_Please, stop. Please,_ a voice pleads.

He struggles to breathe and can’t inhale past what’s been forced into his mouth, hard edges of some foreign object stretching downwards into his chest.

Low tones, noise that warbles in and out across a void becomes something louder, more urgent, almost clear to ears past hearing as he cries out, voiceless.

Loud mechanical tones beep in the background, ever present. There’s a ringing wail that rages against his muted senses, something that he can almost make sense of if he just had a moment.

Muscles rip and tear through his lower back into his spine and there’s a weight on his chest, a resistance to movement and he can’t breathe.

He tries to raise a hand, but his limbs are heavy and foreign with fingers that feel bloated and numb. Tries to grip the cold cutting pressure on his chest but his body won’t move. Something, someone is holding him back; hands that aren’t his own pushing against his shoulders and arms, forcing them down.

It hurts, his body, but his cries are muffled and broken and the fracturing heat in his chest turns cold as ugly tremors catch up to him, shaking into the core of his being. He's an ice burning so cold it leaves a trail of a thousand tiny knives cutting into his skin.

He would give anything to make it stop, to make things be still.

The hollow beats that rattle his chest are agony turned frantic; the noise around him changes, turns shrill. There’s sudden light burning into his retinas, shadows flickering in and out of view as he convulses harder, until one last beat falls flat and a long high pitch tone plays in the back ground.

A cloud settles over his mind and body until it feels as thick as mud and just as dark, and finally _finally_ he can feel himself slipping back into the black.

But the weight slams into his chest again. With a wrenching twist of agony, electricity forces his heart into another ragged beat. His body screams for rest, longs for the silence that he’s left behind. But it doesn’t listen and his heart pumps forcefully, and again as his chest rises up against his will, another jolt of electricity shooting through skin and sinew into the cold recesses of his soul.

It’s an eternity before it catches, before something changes in his chest, falling into a hesitant but steady rhythm.

His body aches fiercely, but underneath the pain a steady pulse finally continues on its own. This time when he falls he only slips halfway into oblivion.

Instead of a cold silence, he dreams of noise and warmth, of fingers brushing over over his skin and a voice whispering faint promises in his ear.

* * *

 

". . . the last test showed positive results. It shouldn’t be. . .” the middle-toned voice warbled in and out of his hearing, carried along with a symphony steady beeping noise.

His eyelids are a heavy, comfortable weight and there’s an exhaustion that is settled into his bones.

“I’m not paying you for platitudes, I brought you . . .” a curt, lower voice, masculine he thinks, speaks and it brings up faint stirrings of emotion in his belly that he fails to place. His mind is a fog and nothing makes sense.

His back feels cool. He’s resting on a hard surface that’s raised slightly underneath his neck. His fingers move on their own volition and the surface under him is so smooth and so cold it feels wet.

As he drifts in and out listening to the murmur of conversation around him, he realizes his mouth is open, a heavy smooth weight forcing its way passed his lips.

When he swallows he can feel the ridges of the contraption traveling down his throat and he feels panic. Instinct tells him he needs to breathe. He tries, but the contraption in his mouth gets in the way. The beeping in the background picks up pace, the thudding from his chest audible in his ears.

He tries to lift his hand, but can’t. A smooth, soft material is fastened around his wrists holding them in place. His hand clasps into a fist, and he tries again.

“He’s waking up,” the female voice comes from his left, and he hears clinking and clattering noises of something being adjusted or grabbed off of metal. “What? It’s too ear—”

He jerks his shoulder forward, willing his eyes open as terror begins pumping into his chest anew. The world enters his vision slowly, blurry, even after multiple blinks.

There’s bright light and a figure that approaches from his left, the feeling of a hand pressing down against his shoulder.

“. . . Can you hear me?” The female voice asks, “I need you to calm dow—”

He jerks away, there’s a feeling in his gut, fear, and it causes a burning pain in his lower back that he grunts through the mask strapped around his face. All he knows is that he has to get away, has to get out.

“—amn it, it’s too soon. O’Toole, sedate him. He’s going to re-inj—”

Terror hits in an adrenaline spike. He jerks his arm and shoulder, throwing the hand off and tightening the restraints wrapped around him. A flood of water threatens to overwhelm him, drown him in tears, even with constant blinking. He wants to howl, but his throat constricts around tubing.

“’Toole! Get over here!” More clattering and another figure joins the first on his left, a third standing on his right. The first two are in light blue clothing, their faces and bodies a blur, with long hair and white masks. The third on his right has dark clothing, face pale and hair indistinguishable from the rest of their head.

A sickening cloud seeps into his skin and finds it’s resting place in his veins as a slothful darkness creeps through him. His head falls back down and a hand catches it at the last moment to ease it back. There’s a smooth pressure running over his scalp, a low voice murmuring gently.

“Rest now, Clark. Everything will be okay. Just, rest.”

Darkness overwhelms him once more.

* * *

 

His head throbs violently. It’s the first thing he remembers. A white hot iron that presses itself against the back of his skill and curls around to the base of his neck like a bad bruise. Even a small shift sparks a wave of pain that shines red on the back of his eyelids. His groan is trapped in a dry throat, blocked by wires and tubes.

He can’t breathe. Something blocks his mouth and when he tries to inhale he fails, choking on the hard immovable object. He opens eyelids that cut like sandpaper and laboratory lights shine down in unfiltered brightness, hitting his pupils like a sledgehammer. His neck won't move, and his heart beats a little faster as he slides his eyes from right to left searching for answers.

The room is a mixture of eggshell white and stainless steel and tubes that all led to him and nothing is familiar. He jerks violently, wanting to reach up, but his heavy limbs are restrained. His chest constricts and he needs air and so he jerks again but the rest of his body is so heavy that it barely has an effect. Liquid floods his vision and he blinks to clear it. Panic prickles along the back of his neck. He feels a low vibration deep inside his bones just as a figure in white rushes to his side, with long blond hair that reaches their shoulders, tied back halfway, and a white mask that covers most of their face except for glasses and green eyes.

“Mr. Kent, Mr. Kent, I need you to calm down.”

He jerks his head again, trying to scream around whatever they had done to him and her hands reach for his face, “I need you to relax, Mr. Kent. You’re trying to breathe on your own, but you’ve been on a ventilator, okay?”

Finally, the restraint holding his right arm snaps and he reaches up, but hands block him as he struggles to rip whatever it was off his face. “Welsh?!” The figure calls out, voice strained, and a larger blur shows up at his other side, taking his hand and forcing it back down. He feels straps wrap around him tightly once more. No, no this wasn't right, this wasn't right!

“Mr. Kent, we’re going to take it out, but you need calm down, do you understand? This will be easier the more relaxed you are.”

He couldn’t nod, couldn’t breathe, was shaking from head to foot, but he had no choices. She was messing with the ends of the apparatus near his face, trying to comfort him, saying, “This will feel a little weird.” He arches his back as something drags from low in his throat, nearly down to his stomach, all the way up. At long last his airway is clear and he gags and coughs as he breathes in for the very first time. The air is sweet, cold, and very dry.

“You did perfect. It’s okay,” The woman soothes, “How do you feel?”

His vision is blurred and he has to blink multiple times for it to begin to clear. His heart feels like a bird in his chest, beating faster and faster as he looks around wildly, head beating in tandem, like a low, throbbing drum. “W-” and his voice is like gravel, a barely audible rasp. Something is shoved before him, a straw, and when he sips, “Slowly, now,” the sweet cool presence of water washes through his mouth, coating his sore throat. “W-where am I?” he finally manages, when they took it away.

“You’re in the hospital, Mr. Kent. You’ve been sick,” the woman tells him.

“Why am I restrained?” he asked, impossibly tense. He tries to make sense of the room, all white and stainless steel, except for a dark corner of two way glass that shows a shadowed room. “Welsh,” a large man, with arms the size of the woman’s entire body, is checking the rest of his straps and it’s a raw nerve.

“You’re disoriented, Mr. Kent, we don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“I’m fine,” he pants, hands clenching and head throbbing, a solid wave of static building in his ears. There’s movement in the room beyond, the outline of a man in a suit, face hidden in shadow and he can't take his eyes off him. “I, just – let me out,” he says dizzily, “I want out.”

His head was agony, a steady burn that spreads to the back of his neck. He can't seem to catch his breath, his heart is racing, flapping around wildly. What was wrong with him? He clenches his eyes shut, feeling his head falling back against the thin mattress.

He wants to say more but chokes on the words, the acidic tang of bile rising at the back of his throat. His head splits, cracking open like an egg, and he sees red and sparks of whitish yellow light. A sharp ripping pain bursts across his temple, making the earlier ache seem distant and small, and he gasps, vague notions of alarmed voices in the distance, someone shaking his shoulder urgently. “M-my head,” he manages through the pain before his muscles give out and he can feel eyes roll back up into his skull. A strange tingling sensation that tastes like rust spreads down his spine and his whole body starts shaking, violent spasms, as if he's laying on a live wire.

“He's seizing, there’s too much –”

Hands hold him down and it's everything that he doesn't bite through his tongue as his head snaps back over and over again, back arching like it’s trying to pull his feet to his shoulders with invisible string. There are flashes, images of sunlight and water written on the back of his eyelids, a roaring in his ears and the taste of salt and blood.

When it ends, his body goes limp and he realizes the restraints are gone from his limbs, broken. But exhaustion claws at him and he lets himself go.


	2. recovery

At first, he sleeps. He doesn't know just how long he spends drifting in and out. It could be days, it could be weeks. His body feels impossibly heavy and his mouth is full of mud that tastes like something foul. When eyes are closed he dreams of strange empty silence, in a slow rush of water and darkness and when eyes are open he stares up blankly into a dimly lit room, the weight of heavy eyelids threatening his vision.

Someone sits to his right. A fair skinned man in a suit that changes each time he opens his eyes, his bald head bowed as he alternates between staring down at a tablet, typing steadily on a laptop, or going through stacks of paperwork. Sometimes, a heavy set, dark skinned woman is behind him, holding different folders and briefs, or staring down at a small screen of her own.

Once or twice the man is looking directly at him when he opens his eyes, face inscrutable. “Clark?” But he always sinks back into a heavy oblivion before anything else can be done.

Doctors come and go, sometimes taking readings, sometimes pulling eyelids open and shining a light so bright it burns. Even with eyes closed, he can feel them putting and removing pressure on his head and something tells him it should hurt, but there was only faint pressure, stretched out in fog.

Sometimes he wakes with a sudden gasp, stiffening in a painful arch as violent tremors seize his entire body, muscles pulled taut, curling from the back of his head and twisting down his spine. Alarms cry out, and hands hold him down. Someone is always on his right gripping his immobile arm or brushing a hand over his clammy forehead with vague words of comfort until his muscles unlock and he collapses back. He hates these times the most.

But eventually, his eyes open and stay open. He’s in a different room than before. Less white laboratory and stainless steel, more comfort and soft light. His head is a distant ache, only a distant relative of the fire that he’d woken up with before. Both can only mean good things.

His room is surprisingly large, and it’s obvious that no expense has been spared. The walls are painted a cheerful robin egg blue and lined in dark wood and there’s window on the back wall, showing a glimpse of a stone garden. A large painting to the left shows off elaborate strokes of yellow and gold that from this distance looks like the sun. A flat screen TV is nestled on the wall opposite to him, to the right of an open door that looks like it leads to a bathroom.

A bedside table of polished wood is to his left, with a sleek vase of yellow daffodils, along with dresser against the wall. There is another painting on the wall to his right, next to a closed door. Simple strokes of blue, yellow, and red that makes up the illusion of a barn resting in a field of tall grass, blue and white skies overhead. And below it is a chair. He can see that he’s not alone. The leather, padded seat pulled up next to his bed is occupied by a vaguely familiar man staring down at his lap at a thin black tablet resting on folded legs. He taps at it rhythmically with long, thin fingers, and it sounds like rain.

The man is light skinned, bald, with an aristocratic face that’s tugged into a small frown at whatever’s in front of him. Today he wears a button up dress shirt, in a dark violet. The first two buttons are loosened around his neck, sleeves rolled several times to show long pale arms. Black, creased pants and dark polished shoes scream money and business professional, and he can make out a matching black jacket hanging from the back of the man’s chair. His eyes drag back up to study the man’s face, and he comes in contact with startling green, the man suddenly staring at him with all of his focus.

Neither of them says a word. The silence drags out until the man shuts the laptop with a light click, placing it on the bedside table without breaking eye contact, speaking softly, “Clark. Welcome back.”

It’s a low timber, a slow vibration, that’s nearly whispered and as he blinks, the man smiles, just an upward tilts of his lips and a slight relaxing around his eyes. He leans forward closer placing a hand down over the blankets, a soft pressure near his shoulder.

He opens his mouth to reply, and it feels like sand and dust and he can only cough.

The man grabs a cup of clear plastic with matching straw and brings it forward. He tries to raise his head and doesn’t get very far, but the man lowers the straw to his lips and he closes his eyes in respite as the cool liquid hits the back of his mouth. The man puts the cup back over to his side when he’s done, still leaning forward, and his is gaze heavy as they meet eyes again. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” he finally says with a tongue that’s three times too large, his voice a low rasp that tickles his throat and sounds strange to his ears, “Confused.”

“Do you remember what happened?” the man asks, eyes intent.

He thinks for a long time, says, “Hospital,” and then, “seizures,” and nothing else comes to him since before he woke up strapped to the gurney. The other man leans back to give him some space, drawing his hands, one in a black glove, the other bare, into a steeple in front of him, tapping them against his lips in thought. “And before that?” he queries.

He shakes his head, helplessly.

“You don't remember anything?” The other man asks again, “Nothing at all?”

He tries to blink away the weight in his chest as he wrestles with the giant gaping hole in his head, searching for words. “I remember waking up,” he says, playing it through slowly in his mind, “My head feeling like it was about to explode. There was a white room. Doctors. I had a seizure. Multiple seizures. You,” he nodded, “sat there, a lot. I slept, a lot. But,” he hesitated, “before that? It’s like, it’s like I wasn't even here. I- what happened?”

Even talking that much leaves his throat feeling raw, and he clears it roughly. The man gives him another drink of water before answering. “You were injured,” the man says calmly, “But it’s okay now.” When he looks back to him the other man’s smiling. “You’re awake, you’re recovering, and that’s the important thing.”

The man continues, “You’ve been asleep for a long time, Clark. A long time.”And his voice sounds haunted, but his eyes clear and he shakes his head. “Don’t worry,” the man says, his gloved hand sliding up to grip his shoulder reassuringly as he smiles fully, teeth white and sharply outlined against pale lips, “We’re going to get through this.”

* * *

They say his name is Clark Joseph Kent, and he has no choice but to believe them. He is thirty two years old and he’s been in a coma for the last two years. He was injured in a building collapse after an attack in Metropolis where he worked.

The other man is Lex Luthor. And he doesn’t say it himself, but Clark slowly pieces it together from the hospital staff, what they say and how they act; it was Lex Luthor who moved him into this private, advanced facility, who brought in a team of the best doctors for treatment, who didn’t give up on him for two years. It is Lex Luthor who he owes his life.

He is Clark Joseph Kent, but right now he feels like a ghost in an empty shell. He’s made up of jagged edges that feel sharp underneath his skin, bits and pieces slowly given to him by other people and he doesn't quite know what to do with most of it. Trapped in a body he doesn't recognize with limbs that refuse to move and a face that pulls tightly when he speaks and exhaustion that creeps in his bones. There's a dry itch under his skin, a scream in the back of his throat that longs to get out. When he's alone, in the odd moments, he feels like a marionette with its strings cut and he wishes for something more.

* * *

Lex Luthor keeps a team of doctors on his payroll, and once he was awake every single one of them had a litany of tests they had in lists for him run through.

Dr. O’Toole, the woman from the white room and the lead on the Clark Kent project, starts. He nods and listens and answers questions, mostly with “I don't know,” until finally Lex Luthor says, mouth compressed in a hard line, “That’s enough” and he looks down to see his hands are trembling.

Terms like "retrograde amnesia" and "loss of episodic memory" are thrown in to his diagnosis. Lex follows along, face carefully neutral, but Clark finds that he doesn't really care what it's called. He can feel an absence in his head, like a black hole, and giving it a name doesn't stop the empty expanse from feeling like a prison. He's told carefully, everyone watching to gauge his reaction, that in cases like this, memory either comes back or it doesn't, and there's no certainty of either/or. He pushes the knot back down his throat, forces the tension out of his hands, and says, “I understand,” so that maybe they can finally stop talking about it.

His body is riddled with dull aches and pains. His original injuries were a list too long to count and he'd had multiple complications in the two years since. He has limited feeling in his left hand, mostly pins and needles and pressure. His head is still wrapped with white bandages from a secondary surgery that was done a week ago to relieve pressure from swelling in his brain, and what little of his dark hair he can see is shaved close to his scalp. There’s welt of raised, uneven ridges on his chest that runs into an ugly puckered circle near the remains of his belly button. He can trace the heavy pink lines from his abdomen up his side and curving across his spine to scrape along the underside of his right shoulder blade, where its twin, another harsh circle is etched higher up on his back, as if something had pierced his body clean through and then been ripped out to one side.

How he was alive he couldn’t say, looking at the scar line, when he should be in two separate pieces. Dr. O’Toole praises the miracles of modern science and the finances of her benefactor that allowed them to use cutting edge technology to keep him alive while they pieced him back together. Clark isn't so sure that there wasn't something else involved, looking at his body.

He is shockingly thin, ribs and clavicle clearly outlined. His eyes, a sharp blue, are sunk deep into his skull. Nearly twenty four months of being a human vegetable fed through a tube had dropped him from a healthy weight to that of a walking skeleton. Sitting up for longer than an hour or two unassisted leaves him shaking. His body was already beginning to ache with the strain of just leaning forward, and he lets himself fall back into the pillow and raises the bed to a higher incline to accommodate for the change.

Doctors tell him over time that the seizures he's experienced are most likely permanent, using a dose of hem hawing optimism that there is a chance in the future that his brain might work it out on its own. He continues to nod along, not because it's something he wants to hear (the part of him that had needed to know where he was and why he was there has long since fled back to the pit in his stomach) but because he's tired and there's tightness in his throat that he doesn't think he can talk around. Green eyes study him as if they know everything that he doesn't say.

He doesn’t know what he liked least about life after waking up, but it feels like a tie between the medicine and the physical therapy. But treatment was necessary if he wants to get better. If he wants to ever do more than sit in a bed and talk about who he used to be. His body feels like dead weight and he wants to run and run and maybe never stop running. He wants to be able to sit up, to stand, to look in the mirror and not see the shadow of a man that he's shown in pictures. He's wants to find himself again, and he can't do that from a hospital bed.

He takes the medicine they give him, a cup full of pills and several injections three times a day. The combination leaves him sick, and he has to brace himself, a mantra on repeat in his head. I have to get better. I have to get better. I have to get better. It makes him break out into a cold sweat and his body trembles and bile raises to the back of his throat as nausea hits him in waves. There's always a nurse or a doctor monitoring he reaction, and they keep an eye on his condition and draw blood by the hour as they try to balance all of the treatments he needs in a way that has the least negative interactions.

Physical therapy is possibly even worse. In the two years he had been asleep his muscles had atrophied to the point where he can barely sit up. Welsh, the attendant that had been with Dr. O'Toole that first fateful day, helps with that and he must have been a drill sergeant in an earlier life. Or perhaps this one, Clark thinks, eyeing the two ton nurse made of solid muscle with tree trunks for arms and anchors for legs.

Welsh carries him to and from the bathroom, wheels him to PT, and gruffly runs him through a series of exercises that twist and burn in the indoor pool. He frequently sees him at his worst. There are moments in the beginning that Clark can't even look the man in the eye, that he has to bite his lip to keep from yelling or screaming to just be left alone, but that fades with time to a mixture of weary resignation and acceptance. Lex, thankfully, has the courtesy to be somewhere else during the worst moments, but will occasionally sit in on sessions as they get further along. Clark suspects it's because he knows Clark will push himself more with an audience. He's not wrong, those are always the most successful workouts and each one leaves him limp, body nearly vibrating in an itchy kind of pain.There are stretches and movements that Welsh helps him perform on all of his limbs that eases some of the pain, but it hovers through his body and never truly dissipates and he longs for the day when it won’t hurt anymore

The best moments since waking were when Lex visits.

Sometimes Lex tells him stories, not always about him, sometimes about Lex's own childhood, and they're always larger than life, painting a picture that Clark can see when he closes his eyes. Sometimes they watch movies or listen to music or he brings him a book, something in his expression telling Clark that he's going to love them. He teaches him how to play chess and talks about his cars and laughs through fond memories. It's in those times that Clark almost feels comfortable in his skin, and when he smiles it doesn't seem like a lie.

And if Lex rarely talks about the recent years, after high school and college, Clark doesn't question that until later.

* * *

He is Clark Kent, Lex tells him. The son of the late Martha and Jonathan Kent and a native of Smallville. His parents were good hard working people and they’d raised a good son that had helped a lot of people at their lowest. Smallville, “honestly, Clark," Lex says in exasperation, "Smallville, in one word, is about corn. Okay, okay, corn and meteor showers.” It held the Kent farm where he spent his first eighteen years living, the farm he still likes to visit it every once in a while when he wants to take a sabbatical from the city life.

He is Clark Kent, Lex says. A journalist for The Daily Planet. A good one he’s assured. He lives in a small one bedroom apartment in a “not so great area, Clark, we’ll have to work on that,” of Metropolis and commutes to work. He writes everything from criminal exposes to fluff pieces of zebras being rescued by the local zoo.

They call him Clark Kent, and maybe, just maybe, he can finally start to picture the man when he closes his eyes and imagines it.

* * *

He'd recognized early on, peripherally, that his TV didn't have any news channels, local broadcasts, weather alerts. Later, he'd think on it even more, that there had never been any newspapers or magazines, that everyone talked around what happened outside of Clark's room as if the space inside was the only space that had ever existed.

His rooms didn't have windows that led to the outside. The stone garden he stared at daily, is an internal courtyard, lit by multiple ceiling panels. From what he can tell, he's the only patient on his floor. Lex explains the facility is normally used for people, politicians or public figures getting treatment who needed a heightened level of discretion and privacy is held to the highest standard.

Clark doesn't have any frame of reference, but there's a tickle of unease that he has to push back, the thought that him not seeing anyone else means that no one else sees him. No one else has come to visit him, and he wonders if Clark Kent had any other friends or family, outside of Lex Luthor. He's noticed that Lex has the near magic ability of successfully changing the subject without him catching on whenever the subject is broached.

Dr O’Toole says that giving him too much stimulus this early on might destroy the progress he inched towards, information overload was dangerous for his stability. And at first, Clark doesn't argue. He lets everyone else direct the conversation and is fine with working through information they do give him, directionless as he is. But as time passes, as he begins to sink into some semblance of self, Clark starts to have his own questions and begins to feel restless, trapped.

* * *

There's a day, sometime in the middle of it all when Clark's finally able to sit up without the assistance of a dozen pillows, that Lex throws him a bone and shows Clark the internet. He gives Clark a small black laptop with the condition that some blocks have been put in place, if only for Clark's protection and Lex’s peace of mind (and that raises hackles that he doesn't recognize and so ignores), but that, if Clark adjusts well, those will be lifted in no time.

The first thing Clark does after Lex leaves is Google himself. It pulls up a little under ten thousand returns. At the top of the list, an outdated LinkedIn profile gives him vague professional references, and confirms that he worked at The Daily Planet, but not much else.

There’s another Clark Kent, apparently, a female veterinarian in Lander, Wyoming, that comes up as the second through twenty hits and from her Facebook page, has a life revolves around a Miniature Bull Terrier named Snuffles and frequent trips to build churches in South America.

Then there are dozens of articles that apparently he wrote, or at least assisted on. Most are, honestly, terribly dull in a way that glazes his eyes halfway through a nine page segment on Metropolis zoning las.

His second search is for Lex Luthor, and this time he gets over thirty million returns. He exhales softly as he stares at the top profile of his friend, who is also apparently among the ten wealthiest people in the world, the CEO of LexCorp, and currently in the running for the U.S. Senate. It’s a lot. He hesitates as he skims through page after page, feeling odd and hesitant to find out more. He knew Lex was wealthy, he knew he was important, but this was so much more than anything he had been expecting.

Thirdly, Clark looks up the day that he almost died two years and blinks again as he gets over two million responses. The very first is an article from the Daily Planet, SUPERMAN FALLS, by Lois Lane. He clicks it open, and studies the picture that displays at the top of the article. It's a photo taken from the ground point up, two figures grappling together, one in the shape of a man in red and blue, the other grotesque and humanoid in only the barest of sense, a mottled green, both silhouetted by blue sky and dust that seems to be rising up, bordered by a ray of light. And then he reads, and he learns about superheroes and monsters, and the death of a Titan. He didn't remember Metropolis, or Superman, or the attack on the city but by the end of the article, his cheeks are wet all the same.

He shuts the laptop and decides to leave the rest of his research for another time.

* * *

There comes a day that he’s being taken back to his room after physical therapy, eyes closed, focused on his breathing and trying to ignore how his body feels like Jell-O, when he overhears a one sided conversation from around a corner he's never been to.

The voice is dark, near furious, but ice cold, and it sends a shiver down his spine, “No, that isn't even close to acceptable. I gave you one job, Stiles. East Side Recovery. I don’t think I need to tell you what happens if Wayne’s dogs catch wind of-”

The man's words drops off as he moves further away down the opposite hall, becoming a more vague murmur. It's a shock to his system and it takes a couple of seconds for Clark's brain to catch up to the fact that he recognizes the speaker, Lex. The realization that it's his friend causes a cold stutter in his rapid heartbeat.

Welsh is his typical silent presence as they make it the rest of the way to his room and leads him to the bed. Clark is glad that he doesn't have to force conversation as he ruminates, feeling as he's just seen a facet of Lex Luthor that he hadn't even realized existed.

After a few minutes, there's a light rap on the door before it swings open. “Clark,” Lex says as he enters, carrying white plastic bags in his left hand, voice warm and so different from before that Clark starts to think he imagined the whole thing. Welsh is just finishing folding the blankets back over his legs, and Clark smiles weakly back, his face feeling strangely tight. “Hey Lex,” he says, feeling inexplicably nervous, “You just missed PT.”

“That’s too bad,” Lex’s eyes flick quickly from him, the wheelchair, and the door, back to him so quickly Clark almost misses it. “Welsh in a swimsuit is something I try not to miss.”

The big man grunts from Clark’s side, face carved from stone, and Clark feels himself laugh at that and Lex’s dry tone. His friend lifts the bag he holds in gloved hand and something savory and sweet hits his nose, “How do you feel about Thai?”

Hunger speaks for him, and he pushes the conversation to the back of his mind. Lex is a businessman, a politician, a billionaire - there are corners there that Clark couldn't assume to know or understand. What mattered now is that with him, Lex was a friend.

* * *

He is Clark Kent. He likes scrap-booking and red flannel and apple pie. His best friend is Lex Luthor, and a goal of his is to get the other man to laugh at least once a day and to maybe one day beat him in chess. He loves food, can eat for days he eats everything Lex sneaks in for him to try, even, and sometimes, especially when it goes against the doctor’s medical advice, even if he ends up throwing it all up afterwords.

He is Clark Kent, and one day he wants to stand for more than a few minutes, he wants run again. He wants to visit the Grand Canyon and Niagra Falls and see an polar bear in person. He wants to drive in one of Lex’s cars and stare out at Metropolis from the 82nd floor of the LexCorp tower and visit Smallville and talk to his parents' graves.

He is Clark Kent, and he's not there yet, but he thinks that someday, everything is going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shift tenses were a thing on this one. I tried to catch all of them, but some might've slipped through the cracks.


	3. requiem

“How are you feeling, Clark?”

It’s the million dollar question. He shrugs away the pit that sits at the back of his throat and smiles brightly, “Fine, I'm feeling fine.”

“And your dreams? Are they still bothering you?”

Dr. Balkus looks at him with a tilted head, eyes clinical. Clark can practically see the mechanical workings ticking away behind the amber irises. The doctor is impeccably dressed, as always. Whereas Lex was everything that screamed modern, innovative, and new, made up of angles sharpened in black against purple or red, peaked lapels and cashmere blends, the man before him is the character of traditionalism, dark natural tones and organic, layered tweed. A thin gold chain hangs from the material of the dark brown, inner waistcoat, and Clark does not doubt it belongs to an ornate pocket watch. The carefully folded edges of a maroon scarf are carefully presented in the left breast pocket, matching the fabric and color of a seven fold silk tie wrapped without an inch to spare around his neck. The long elegant shoes are Italian, handmade. The doctor’s left foot is crossed over his right, hands resting in lap. Everything feels intentionally placed and it makes Clark’s own tired hunch feel more pronounced.

“Clark?”

“I don’t really remember them,” He sidesteps the question completely.

“But you become highly agitated after experiencing them, yes?”

“When I'm still asleep, I guess.”

The doctor continues for him and Clark feels his eyebrow twitch. “I'm told you experience cold sweats, elevated heart rate, and physical distress severe enough that you’ve fallen from your bed completely.”

Clark shifts in his cushioned seat, staring down at the soft suede house slippers housed on too thin feet and finding them fascinating.

“Afterwards, your PA remarks that you experience mood swings, decreased physical drive, withdrawal,” Balkus adds, steadily. He doesn't refer to anything, uses no notes, no files. He never writes anything down either, always has his attention fully on Clark. Everything about him is controlled, regulated.

It makes Clark unsettled, when people stare at him with such intensity. Lex makes a habit of it too, although perhaps less obviously than the shrink across from him. But he's noticed, and it always makes his skin itch.

“Okay,” Clark allows, “Yeah, I guess they bother me a little. It’s hard to focus afterwards, when I wake up.” He rubs his hands across the material of his sweatpants. The doctor tracks the movement momentarily before flicking back to Clark’s face.

“Tell me about them.”

“It sounds like you already know everything there is to know,” Clark says.

“I want to hear it from you, if you don't mind.”

Clark concedes, “Like I said, I never remember anything. But sometimes I wake up and I. . .” he hesitates,” I feel trapped, sometimes I can barely breathe and,” and his heart stutters along nervously, “Sometimes, I'm not even in bed at all, I'm on the floor or fighting against Welsh or— I crawled to the door once, before anyone found me,” he swallows heavily, that morning still sitting uneasily in his mind, and it causes something to shudder in his head.

_“Let me out. I need out.” A panic in his chest that he can’t contain and if he doesn’t get out, if he doesn’t make it outside then –_

“And how do you feel in that moment, when you wake?”

“Terrified,” Clark finally whispers. There are associations, fragments of a horror so real he can taste it at the back of his throat and it’s on the tip of his tongue, words without meaning that he’s found himself saying over and over again after he woke, _let me out, I need out_ –It makes him feel as sick as the medicine they give him in the afternoon.

“Night terrors are not unusual with patients experiencing a high degree of stress. Irregular sleep also occurs frequently in those such as yourself who’ve suffered from a traumatic brain injury, as with your prolonged amnesia or your seizures,” Dr. Balkus explains into the remaining silence. “Often, you can experience disorientation and fear. Screaming, combativeness, sleep walking, even paralysis is normal. What you are experiencing is difficult, but not uncommon.”

Clark nods.

“Why do you think you are having such a violent reaction?”

He shrugs, and finds himself gripping his hands together tightly before he forces himself to let go. “I don't know. I don’t know if it's the stress like you said,” he rubs a hand through his short hair. “When I’m awake, I feel _fine_.” 

"It’s natural to feel stress in these conditions, uncertainty, doubt.”

Clark cuts him off, “Look I know that I’ve got a long way to go. But I’m getting better. I’m fine. Everything is great. I might,” he flounders, searching,” feel some stress, with the therapy, the tests,” and he stutters over the last word, heart faltering as he forces himself to continue. “I can barely walk. I’m always tired. I can’t remember anything. It’s been over a month now, and nothing’s changed really. So yeah, I feel some stress. But I understand it, I’m, I’m coping,” he emphasizes strongly, willing the doctor to believe him.

Balkus nods, considering, “You’re frustrated. But it’s important to know that consistency is important for recovery. Creating habits, recognizing patterns, easing you back into a daily routine, it is necessary for your mind to rebuild healthy habits slowly and that can feel constraining. I realize from your perspective, your progress might seem like nothing, but I assure you Clark, considering your original condition, what you have achieved already is remarkable.”

Clark’s heard it all before and for a brief moment he wants to do nothing more but shove the words down the other man’s throat. He closes his eyes and breathes instead.

“Think about it,” Balkus continues, “When you arrived here you were in a persistent vegetative state. After four months, the chances of even a partial recovery dropped to less than fifteen percent. At a year? It was highly unlikely that you would ever re-achieve any cognitive function. And yet, two years later, here you are, awake and fully cognizant, with remarkable neurological improvement. Your doctors believe that with intensive rehabilitation you will not only be able to walk, but regain near complete mobility. This kind of recovery is one of a kind; some would even call it a miraculous.”

Clark understands the doctor’s point. He does. He should be happy, grateful. And he is. _He is._

But sometimes, it's hard to feel anything but trapped. Trapped in a body that doesn't want to work. Trapped in a head that can’t remember anything outside what the doctors and Lex and Wikipedia tell him. Trapped in a room, a floor of a private hospital where he sees the same faces, the same walls, day after day after day. Where everything stays the same. It’s hard to keep perspective, to not to lash out or simmer in it. Hard to remember these sessions, or what Lex says, or what he knows is true. That he's lucky to be alive, he's okay, he's getting better.

“Recovering from trauma is difficult and it is going to take time, Clark. Your body has to relearn what it can and cannot do. It has to adjust to changes. Right now, your brain is a balancing act of chemicals and synapses struggling to keep up, and it is going to affect you. Sometimes you cannot control how that will manifest, you can only control how you react to it.”

Easier said than done, but hey, Lex was always going on about how Clark Kent was a diehard optimist. The least he could do was try to act like one. Maybe, eventually, it would actually be true. He swallows the urge to yell and lets himself nod and smile, “Yeah, of course. I'll do whatever I need to do,” and the doctor notes it all with assessing eyes.

“Good. You’re progressing well, Clark. Very well, indeed.”

* * *

 

“How is it that I can buy you an entire wardrobe full of respectable, stylish clothes and yet you still find a way to wear flannel? Where did you even find that shirt, anyway?”

Clark looks from his book down to the red checkered weave, plucking at it lightly, “It's comfortable,” he says. “And I ordered it online, Welsh showed me how.”

Lex rolls his eyes. “You can take the man out of Smallville,” he begins wryly, before continuing in a louder voice. “I wasn't aware that Welsh was a fan of rural American vogue.”

“People can surprise you,” Clark grinned. “We explored Country Outfitter together.”

“That's terrifying. Remind me to fire him immediately.”

Clark's turn for an exaggerated eye roll, “Speaking of terrifying, how goes the campaign?”

Lex clutches at his chest over his thousand dollar suit in mock hurt as he sits at the bench to Clark’s left, kicking out his feet, one over the other, and leaning back in casual abandon. “I'm wounded, Clark,” he says sadly, but he's smiling in the corners of his eyes.

The sound of lightly running water for the fountain in front of them trickles faintly in the background. There are several plants, some small shrubs, scattered elegantly across stone and concrete in a minimalist design, and the air smells clean. Fresh. If Clark shut his eyes, he can imagine that the heat from the above lamps feels like the sun. Is this what it feels like?

“My best friend, whom I've seen with chopsticks shoved up his nose, I might add, is running for Congress and I'm not allowed to be scared for my life?”

Lex’s grin grows into a real one that stretches across his lips, and Clark has the sudden image of a pleased cat. “You know I was re-enacting that for your benefit, to show something you did sophomore year of high school. But, still,” and he considers it heavily, “Remind me not to let you loose on the campaign forums until after the election.”

“If you’re talking about the ones that have the memes with you in a bad toupee standing next to a llama—” Lex nearly chokes on his own spit, but he's Lex, so he turns it into a polite, incredulous cough as he returns Clark’s innocent stare, “I’m already there.”

“That,” he laughs, “That is called tumblr, Clark. And the day I wear hair is the day I have lost my mind,” he runs a hand over his scalp. “I’ve been bald since I was nine and that’s not changing anytime soon.”

There’s a story there that surprisingly Lex hasn’t told him yet, but even without any of his own, Clark can understand the desire for secrets.

“I don’t know, I think it was a good look for you,” Clark argues.

“Right, thank you, Mr. Wild-horses-couldn’t-drag-the-flannel-off-me. I’ll consider that.”

“You’re just jealous of our sense of style,” Clark straightens his flannel shirt proudly and, just to see Lex’s expression, adds, “Besides, just you wait. The denim jackets are supposed to come in sometime tomorrow.”

And it’s worth every penny as Lex’s eyes widen almost comically in horror.

The door to their right opens and—

“You’re fired,” Lex says without hesitation, pointing sharply with gloved hand, not even looking over to the figure that enters with a tray of drinks, a cup of pills, and a dreaded needle.

Welsh walks toward them, emoting as much as a living stone, and asks in a grunt, “Before or after tea?”

Lex’s tilts his head, eyes narrowed, as if he’s actually considering his threat, before he lets his hand drop in defeat with a sigh, “Fine, but I’m having Mercy reroute your post to a P.O. Box in Antarctica.” and Clark laughs.

* * *

 

There’s a bur nestled in the corner of his mind and it digs deeper and deeper every time he brushes against it.

“I want to go outside,” he decides, voices the thought that has nestled against his ribcage for weeks.

Lex looks up from his reading, “Sure,” he agrees readily. “As soon as Welsh returns, we can sit outside in the garden.”

“I want to go outside, Lex,” Clark says again because Lex chooses words like a master craftsman forges a sword and while the stone garden to the left of his room is pleasant and he enjoys sitting there and listening to the trickle of slow water and the buzz of cicadas that come from carefully hidden speakers, they both know what it’s not.

Lex closes the cover of his book over a finger to mark his spot and studies Clark from his seat. There’s a question in the air, a buzz audible only to Clark as he meets Lex’s eyes and it feels almost like a challenge.

“Okay, Clark,” he says simply. “We’ll go outside.”

The buzz dissipates. Clark blinks, “Really?”

The business man smiles back, showing a flash of teeth, “Of course,” he says, voice light as the wind. Later, Clark would come to recognize that look as something more. He’d learn that with Lex, it was all about what he didn’t say. Right now, it just feels like relief. “I don’t want you to feel trapped, Clark. I’ll double check with O’Toole that breathing fresh air and sunlight won’t turn you green, but if you feel ready—”

“I am,” he says quickly. “Then there shouldn’t be any problem.”

A thrill of excitement rushes through him, and his face might crack in half if he smiles any larger, “Great.” He’s not sure what he expects when Welsh pushes him through opening elevator doors that he’d only caught glimpses of before. The ground floor is empty, but open and made up of treated wood and marbled floors and one lone striking crystal chandelier in a foyer that could hold dozens. As Welsh pushes him out towards the exit it suddenly occurs to Clark that he’d been closer to civilization than he’d thought.

The door in front of him swings open on its own accord and the view confirms it.

“This is—” Clark says, eyes wide as he stares at the walls of the nearest buildings that raise around him.

“Metropolis,” Lex confirms from his side, sliding on a pair of dark sunglasses on as they step out from a side lobby of the building, into a discrete courtyard. The exit leads in to a small, discrete space, empty except for an elegant line of dark evergreens that follow the curb of the circular drive made of a rust colored stone that traces slow geometric patterns in deep reds and browns.

There’s a cold rush of air that nearly chills him to the bone and he finds it exhilarating.

The air tastes different. It’s not re-circulated or processed. Brisk with an undercurrent of looming frost. Underneath that, it tastes like the city full of life and with a touch of diesel and stone. He breathes it in until his lungs ache with the foreign pressure.

They’d been in Metropolis the whole time. Clark didn’t know why he was so surprised. He’d thought a private, confidential medical facility would be well, secluded. He says as much and Lex chuckles.

“And so does everyone else. Sometimes, Clark, it’s far easier to keep the things you want to keep secret hidden in plain sight. Besides, it’s a little more difficult to sneak off into the deserts of Nevada when you’re running for public office than it is to take some time off at one of the hotel penthouse suites you own  that happens to have a state of the art medical facility in its basement.”

Clark huffs a small laugh and is entranced when a whiff of mist escapes his lips. Because it’s September.  _Fall._ He knew it academically, but the reality is so much more  _real._

The chill is a crisp edge that prickles at his fingertips and nose, but Clark relishes the feeling.

“There’s a park nearby. It’s private,” Lex continues, pulling his own coat closer to him as he watches a sleek dark car pull forward on the roundabout. It’s another way to say he owns it, or owns the people that own it, but at this point Clark doesn’t care.

He breathes in and out just to watch the mist form again before he grins, cold pressing itself against his face, crisp and nearly cutting in intensity. “Sounds great,” he grins.

Lex allows him another smile as the car slows to a stop.

Metropolis is a wonder that passes him by, and he fills himself on it, an undefined hunger suddenly sated as he feeds on the glimpses of sleek steel and glass. He’d seen the images online, of course, but, pressing a hand against the tinted glass of the car, he realizes nothing compares to seeing the city in person.

The city is so full of life, of people, that Clark nearly feels overwhelmed by it, by the sheer number of people on the sidewalk, the amount of movement that makes it hard to focus, until a woman in a short red overcoat on the sidewalk before him stumbles and catches his attentions, her purse dropping and belongings scattering across pale stone. A man in glasses stops to help, a flush raising on his skin and Clark absorbs the moment as they pass by.

“What do you think, Clark?” Lex asks, voice amused as he observes him. Clark glances back from the glass with a wide grin, a sense of wonder in his heart, “It’s amazing,” he breathes. Lex doesn’t look away but his smile deepens, “Yes, it is.”

They take a number of turns until they take one final left, elevated, with a gate ahead of them opening slowly and shutting again with a methodical beeping as they pass into its depths, concrete and trees that color from burnt yellow to dark red to bare limbed.

The car slows to a stop steadily and Welsh gets out first to prepare Clark’s chair while Lex studies him carefully. “You ready, Clark? We can always do this later. There’s no rush.”

Clark breathes in, careful to control his expression into something more calm and leaning away from the glass he’d been pressed against, before replying, “Yeah, I’m ready.”

Welsh open the door with the aplomb he carries about himself on a normal basis, and Clark resists the urge to laugh hysterically as a new wave of cold, crisp air hits him in the face again. This is normal. This is _normal_.

He’s lifted from the car and placed in a wheelchair, a blanket tucked carefully around his extremities, but Clark barely notices as he takes in the trees with browning leaves, the sound of wind _real wind_ rushing through thinned limbs that shake in slight acknowledgment, the fallen skin of spring rattling around them loosely. And the sun, a golden orange, half shielded by clouds, and yet the warmth of settles into Clark’s hollowed bones as he breathes in the cold air, his limbs tingling in near anticipation.

The heat is a rush that flows through his body unbidden, uncontrolled, and he feels like he’s come home, almost floating in the thrill of it, and he wants to reach out and pull it closer –

“Clark?”

He opens his eyes that have unwittingly closed, his face turned towards the sky and stares at an expectant Lex, brow wrinkled in concern. He's been sitting there frozen for who knows how long, seconds, hours, the world caught in his chest but he has no way to explain it so he smiles sheepishly, another laugh escaping him in a wondrous cloud.

“Sorry,” he says, using his hands to push himself forward, closer to a grouping of trees to admire foliage he’s only read about. He breathes in again and every breath smells even more like nature than the last, trees and leaves and dirt. Even in the cold, there's a warmth unfolding in his very soul and he can’t help but bask in it.

* * *

That night, he falls into sleep immediately and it’s a silence that’s deafening. His limbs are heavy, awkward things that he can’t maneuver and his voice is trapped in his throat - swallowed by salt and water that fills his lungs until they feel fit to burst.

He tries to crawl out of the hole he’s fallen into but he’s sinking and nothing can stop the descent, the light above him blurs and thickens in red, heavy streaks and when he opens his mouth to call for help the viscous liquid forces it’s way in, cold and metallic.

A pain that starts in his chest spreads and rips him in half and the monster that has him in its grasp, full of inhuman edges and angles, twists and snarls and rips into his body. He has to get a way, _he has to get out_ , but he can’t and the world itself is screaming. Limbs are caught against sharp claws that dig into his arms and legs and he spins and spins and spins, spiraling down. He can’t stop, can’t stop as the pressure crushes into his chest and the terror is trapped in his throat. There's a constant, a cacophony of screams, siren song that gets louder as the ground rises up to meet him in horrible, broken pieces of rubble and smoke and flame. 

He crashes into the surface and it splashes upward in a maroon arch that crumbles around him as his body sinks further into a darkened abyss until he is fully engulfed, buried alive except for a faint light that flickers and shimmers above him. He reaches for it knowing it’s forever rising out of his grasp but it dims into forbidding silence and his body goes cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have the beginning and end but it's been a real struggle filling in the middle.


	4. relapse

Clark has his bad days. Physically. Some days there’s an itch that creeps down the back of his spine, a countdown, and when it gets to zero a switch is flicked and he collapses like a puppet to seizures that wax and wane in ferocity but never fully go away. Migraines hit with the ferocity of a tidal wave and he’s forced to spend the day in darkness. Sometimes his body reacts just as harshly to his medication as to his seizures and he spends hours perched over a sick bowl as his stomach spasms.

Mentally, an ugly kind of anger stews in his bowels, a dissatisfaction that resents everything it touchs, and some days it climbs up his throat and strikes with impunity. Bitter thoughts steep in stomach acid and self loathing pushes back against the optimism he fights to hold onto in a locked fist. Some days, a lethargy curls out of his chest, insidious and with the pull of deep ocean water, and he can’t find the energy in him to much past breathe, in and out, in and out, like a tide that comes in and recedes back as the doctors come in and out.

He feels most alive when Lex visits. The other man has a way of charging forward, his confidence unshaken, and it cuts through any doubt Clark feels. When he’s gone, and he is gone more often than not, elections aren’t won by absentee candidates, and when the doctors and nurses are out of the room, and Clark has more time on his hands than his exhausted body can handle, he feels more unstable.

They’ve prescribed anything and everything for all of it, and his calendar is a virtual balancing act of different treatments that aim to make a broken man feel normal. What’s most surprising is that it works more often than not. Months in, and he’s been at it long enough to find some measure of peace with the moments it doesn’t.

It’s only temporary and if anything the last two years has shown him, it’s that he’s a survivor.

But none of that prepares him for his worst days.

He wakes drenched in sweat, muscles taut, fighting sheets wrapped roughly around limbs and his body is fire. It's all he can do to breathe through clenched teeth, his head trapped in a vice-like grip that twists tighter with every ragged breath.

After an eternity there's noise outside of his internal struggle, a nurse making her rounds that ends with quickened footsteps and a cool presence on his forehead.

_“. . . hear me? Mr. Kent?”_

He can only answer in ragged malformed pants that escape the tremor carrying up his chest through desperate lungs. He doesn’t know what’s wrong, but it hurts hurts, it hurts so much. _He can’t breathe, can’t move_ –

Awareness past the next gasp of air the next beat of a frantic heart flits in and out. His bindings sheets are gone and there's the cold hard pressure of a medical instrument on his chest, measuring the staccato beats that pound against his rib-cage.

A digit draws open his left eyelid, and then his right, a flash of light searing into his retinas and cutting through the blurred image of a spectacled woman hovering over him, mouth compressed into a tight line.

His head spasms tightly to the left, over and over again, a ripping pain tearing down his scalp. His chest feels unbearably tight, like his ribs are being squeezed inward and his breathing stutters.

There's a quick pinch of pressure on his right arm, and it causes a lurch against his muted senses that prickle against his skin in a cold shiver just before a new, sharper pain cuts through the static tension of his body at the new pressure point in his arm.

The scream that's been trapped in his throat escapes as groan of a dying animal as liquid fire climbs up his arm and into his chest. It’s impossible to bear, and suddenly he's elsewhere. An open field that extends for miles and miles and miles, the grass up to his waist, and it whistles faintly with a wind that blows in from the south. The warm air brushes against his face, catches in his hair, and his eyes close at the warmth that radiates down from clear, blue skies. It feels like peace. Like home.

He shifts, and suddenly he’s in a busy office, slouched over a worn desk full of nicks and pen marks that escaped passed the lines of old paper. A woman’s voice, bright, sharp, full of life calls to him from his left and he raises a hand to push up his glasses, a warm comfort in his stomach that twists as the image flickers again.

He can’t breathe and he fights against his restraints enough to see the rest of his body on the metal gurney, emaciated with scars that stand out pink and fresh, strapped in with multiple heavy duty bands. People surround him in white coats and try to force him back down, but he forces them back, a desperation that he’s never felt before rising in his throat. He catches sight of a green IV in his arm, and a spider web of darkened, raised veins that pulse in pain that extend down his arm like a nightmare—

“ _—ust a bad dream, Clark, sweetie_ ,” The woman says, blue eyes kind, face framed with beautiful red hair, “ _I’ll be right here, okay? You can go back to sleep now._ ” Her hand brushes against his forehead, followed by a chaste press of lips, the warmth of an escaped breath cool against his fevered brow.

“ _Thanks, Ma,_ ” and he closes his eyes and feels himself sink down through the bed into the floor beneath and passed that sky. He opens his eyes to the skyline of a shining city, but something’s wrong, horribly disfigured buildings transpose over their whole counterparts, and the air is full of smoke and ash –

There’s a monstrous cry that tears through the air, alien and pitched like metal tearing, and he turns from his position in the sky to see a large concrete pillar heaved up from heavy debris and thrown over buildings to slam into him suddenly, a large creature not far behind it –

The sun is hot and its warmth is a heavy blanket that rests on his shoulder as he pushes an old wooden chair into a moving truck that sits at the front of a wooden framed house.

“ _Am I too early for the farm auction?_ ”

The voice is light, but with a thin strain of exhaustion that only someone familiar could pick up. He feels himself freeze, breathing out a small exhale as he turns. The man in front of him is thin, young, but familiar, “ _Lex?_ ”

Lex Luthor grins, an amused, slight quirk to his lips, “ _Three months on a deserted island was almost worth it to see the look on your face right now._ ” He steps forward, feeling lighter than he has in months and the ground shifts under his feet, his legs buckle –

There’s a terrible roar in his ears and claws rake across his back, cutting through fabric and into skin so sharply he cries out and tries to push away, but the alien limbs are unmoving. He grapples with the monster as it tears into him but his strength seems to have failed him as they’re slammed from building to building, the faint sounds of sirens and thousands of screams help please help echo in his ears. And he can’t- he can’t help anyone _he can’t even help himself_ –

He wrenches himself out of unconsciousness, vivid details slipping from thought, only the remnants of a strange hollow terror remaining. His room is still, and Clark lets his breath go slowly, forcing his body to relax and the tight grip on his blankets to release slowly. He's fine. He reminds himself, willing his heart to settle in his chest. He's fine. _Just a bad dream, Clark_ , an unfamiliar voice catches in his mind and it means nothing to him, but there’s a fierce ache in his chest.

It's dark, only faint light from the muted night censors of the garden glowing faintly from his window.

Everything feels heavy, even the air on his face. There's a steady, rhythmic beeping noise above him, a heart monitor, Clark identifies slowly, thoughts thick with inertia.

They hadn't needed a heart monitor for him in weeks.

There's an IV in his arm, sensors clipped onto his fingers and his eyes are drawn to it, to the clean pale skin that suddenly overlaps with a spider web of blackened veins that crawl outwards and duplicate as they travel up his arm into the recesses of a hospital gown. He blinks again and the skin is clear.

A shifting movement from the chair next to his bed catches against the silences.

“Clark?”

It echoes through his mind as he continues to trace over the now nonexistent latticework that climbs up his wrist in blank confusion. Clark. Clark. Clark. The word is a range of emotion not spoken out loud. His head aches in a faint distant way that tells him it was a lot worse before. He remembers waking up to pain, remembers not being able to move and doctors surrounding him, but it’s a mess in his head and the disorientation makes feel dizzy.

“Clark, hey,” and this time the name is followed with a smooth, warm hand gripping his own, gloved counterpart resting over both as the other person notes his alertness. “How do you feel?”

The arms belong to Lex, sitting in a familiar seat, and Clark feels a burn at the back of his eyes that he doesn't want to register. He forces tight words out of his resisting throat, “How . . . How long?”

Days, months, years, how much would be missing this time?

Lex catches on quickly, his grip on Clark's hand tightening briefly, “Only a couple of days. Not long.”

Clark lets that settle into his thoughts, accepts the drink Lex offers from a plastic cup.

“I dreamed,” he says, slowly when Lex takes the plastic away, the words didn’t quite fit and the images had blown away like smoke, but “I think I might’ve been remembering.”

There’s a pause, nearly indistinguishable from the silence, as Lex sets the cup back down and says, “Oh? About what?”

Clark’s eyes drift back over to his hand, eyeing the IV, remembering something that feels like a brick in his stomach, a wave of nausea in his stomach, even as he shrugs as best he’s able in his position.

He searches his memories for anything to grasp onto, “A field,” he says hesitantly, closing his eyes to picture it, _to focus_. He breathes in and out and searches for it. “A large field in the country,” he continues, picking at a vague image that blurs around the edges, “Blue skies, the wind on my face.”

 _A flash of light behind his eyelids. An inhuman scream. Falling_. His eyes jerk open.

“Sounds like Smallville,” Lex says thoughtfully, studying Clark’s face and letting go of his hand in favor of leaning back against his chair and cradling his hands before him.

“Smallville,” Clark repeats, letting the words settle. He’s looked it up of course, he’s seen pictures, heard the stories, and can probably quote it’s population and major exports, but it hits him now what it really is, “Home.”

“Yes,” Lex says, and there's something in his voice like he knows exactly what Clark is thinking. “We can visit it later, if you want. When you get better.”

It’s a pre-emptive strike if Clark’s ever heard one. He licks his lips and looks back up to the ceiling.

“When I get better?” he mouths, musing over the sentence and feeling every inch of just how frail his body is under the sheets.

“Of course.”

Clark's eyes are burning and there’s a sudden frustration that he doesn’t have the energy to deal with right now. “Right,” he says, and it sounds hollow enough that Lex shifts forward again, frowning.

“You will get better, Clark,” he insists, face sharper than it was before as he reads Clark’s expression. “I promise. And when you do,” his smile grows, “we’re going to accomplish great things.”

Clark’s breath catches in his throat at the force of the other man’s statement. On their own, or with anyone else, he might find those words disturbing, or strange, but the power of the belief in Lex’s voice reads like a drug and he finds himself nodding to the words, barking out a breath of laughter. “Yeah, okay.”

In the days and weeks to come, he’s sure he’ll have more questions, but for now, it’s enough. He leans back into the pillows, “Thanks, Lex.”

* * *

 

Recovering after a setback is always difficult. There are moments when it seems near impossible, when he can feel himself just drift away from the effort it takes. Time passes in uneven bursts of seconds that tick by too slowly and hours that pass in the blink of an eye.

Sometimes he snaps back into his body sharply, with an intake of breath to find himself in a different position, at a new incline in the bed or showered and in new clothes. Or once, out of his room entirely in the garden, staring blindly at the fountain, Welsh a loyal figure at the side of his wheelchair, throat and eyes impossibly dry as if he forgotten to even swallow or blink.

But slowly, as the days go by, it gets better. He feels normal, or as _normal_ as he can get in his condition.

Lex visits as frequently as he can, but Clark's relapse seems to have happened at a critical point in the other man’s campaign, and the silences when he's gone are louder than most. He spends a lot of time planning. Day trips to different parks in the city, a Metropolis Monarchs game in April, and one slightly unrealistic gaunt for two across Route 66 which independenttravelcats.com assures is the Ultimate American road trip.

He pushes himself through physical therapy sessions, and it’s exhausting, but the wheelchair is eventually replaced by a walker and then the walker meets a violent death in Hallway B and Welsh presents him with a cane. It’s louder than he’d expect a cane to be, the polished wood and rounded top of some no doubt very expensive dark red stone tells Clark the Lex picked it out himself, but he accepts it with rolled eyes and a relieved smile.

Short walks around his room become slow laps in the interior garden that leave him exhausted, but happy to finally show something for the effort he’s put in.

He still has seizures, with the medications he takes they are more isolated but never completely gone. Now that he’s in a more stable condition, doctors discuss more long term solutions to the cocktail of pills and shots they’ve been giving him.

The device in his hands was small, a flat round piece of metal that wasn’t any larger than a silver dollar. “And this would go in me?”

“It’s called a pulse generator. It’s used for automatic nerve stimulation,” Dr O’Toole explains, pulling up a chart that shows the outline of his body. “We implant it here,” she circles a small area below his right collar bone above the nipple, “Once activated, it will send regular, mild pulses of electrical energy to your brain through the vagus nerve and help prevent habitual seizures.”

“Why can’t I just stay on the meds you’re giving me?” Clark asks, curious. Not that he likes the pills they currently give him, but the idea of going under and being cut open again isn't exactly what he's looking for either.

O’Toole sighs, “They haven’t been as effective as we would like and frankly, keeping you at the doses you’re currently at could have serious long term consequences. With this, we’ll be able to cut your prescriptions down substantially. Most patients report a significant to complete drop in seizures, and those you do have will be far less severe and with a highly improved recovery time.”

He flipped the coin like device over again in his hands a couple more times in consideration, flicking it up in the air and catching it again once, before leaning to put it back on her desk. “Sounds good,” he says, “Unbelievably good,” he adds, imagining the freedom that came with fewer seizures, grin growing into a smile. “I put myself in your expert hands, Doctor.”

“Of course, there are a few small risks and possible side effects—”

Clark cuts her off, with a wave of his hand. Every day since he’d been awake had been one risk and side effect after another. “That’s okay, Dr. O’Toole. I trust you.”

She pushes up her glasses with her other hand sharply, “I’m glad to hear that, Mr. Kent—

“Clark,” he says for what must be the thousandth time since he'd woken up. “Please, just call me Clark, Dr. O’Toole. You've saved my life. You've seen me naked. I've thrown up on you," he lists in exasperation, long past embarrassment. "I don't know how much more it should take." He laughs, running a hand through the growing hair on his scalp. "Seriously, how many more times are you going to make me ask?” 

“At least one more time, Mr. Kent, as always,” she says firmly, as she moves to set her clipboard back on the table. “It’s important to keep the doctor-patient relationship professional. You don't owe me any gratitude. I’d do the same for any of my patients.”

He rolls his eyes at her stubbornness, “I guess it's lucky Lex made me yours.”

The clipboard freezes for just a moment before settling on the desk in front of her, “Yes. I suppose it is."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapters are a little shorter than my super idealized outline asked for. But posting is encouraging me to write more, and so the cycle goes. I feel like I've landed in a weird, sorta vague head space on this one, but I'm determined to finish it if it's the last thing I do.


	5. return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Geography Note: I know the show has Smallville relatively close to Metropolis but I'm more of a fan of the Metropolis/Gotham share Delaware Bay positioning. And Smallville isn't Smallville without that good ol' Kansas vibe so road trips it is.

“Clark,” Lex greets as he steps into the garden, eyeing him up and down, before resting his eyes on Clark’s face with a smile that's settled around the creases of his eyes, “You’re looking a lot better.”

“And you look dead on your feet,” Clark throws back, because the billionaire does. As much as the other man allows himself to, anyway, because there has never been a time when Lex hasn’t been one hundred percent in control of his appearance.

Even now, in a conservative blend of Italian leather shoes, black slim fit pants and white button down shirt with a sharp oxford collar, he’d fit in within the pages of high end fashion magazine. 

The almost frayed energy was in the details; the remnant of a crease on his forehead, the rolled up sleeves and top two buttons undone on his shirt, his jacket folded casually and tucked into the crevice made by a bare hand wedged into pants pocket, a sleek silver watch gleaming momentarily against the sunlamps above them.

All the other man was lacking was a tumbler of some expensive dark liquor, of which Clark was sure could be thrown back just as easily as sipped in cool contemplation.

“Was Gotham that bad?”

“I really _don’t_ want to talk about Gotham,” Lex says as he walks forward. The other man throws his jacket across the back of the bench Clark has been resting on, and rubs a gloved hand over his scalp, “The whole city is a nightmare.”

“Oh?” Clark says idly, scratching his nose and suddenly hyper aware of the Gotham Gazette article peering up at him from the laptop on his lap. Lex follows the trajectory of his jacket and sits down heavily a foot from Clark and catches sight of it a moment later.

He rolls his eyes dryly, leaning to rest his head back, his bare arm settling on the wooden backboard, the other resting carefully on his lap. “Don’t tell me you’ve taken to reading that rag."

“News is news, Lex,” Clark says, but he snaps the laptop shut. “Even if said news is about an evil clown escaping out of the city asylum for the twelfth time running and not your magnanimous lunch with the mayor.”

“Yes, well,” Lex muses behind closed eyes, “there are some things you can’t account for in a campaign schedule and the Joker is one of them. It's a stroke of luck that he didn’t choose to make his grand re-entry into the free world by throwing the mayor in a vat of acid.” _Like last time,_ went unsaid.

Clark shivered, “Why even go if Gotham’s that dangerous?”

 “It’s important to foster good relations with Metropolis’ sister city,” Lex says in reflex, “not many outside of the brave and stupid make an attempt these days, which makes for good press on those who succeed. On the right day, anyway,” he adds, voice turned sour.

“The brave and stupid, huh? Which does that make you?”

Lex cracks open an eye and tilts his head to stare at Clark, green eyes calculated but fond.

“Ambitious,” he replies, and for all the amusement in his expression there’s an edge to the word, a sharpness that serves as a warning.

Lex closes his eyes after a deserving pause, adding as an after thought, “And well armed. My security team had everything well in hand. I think Mercy was just looking for the opportunity.”

Lex says it with a wave of his gloved hand, as if it’s normal.

Clark stares at the black leather that rests over slim fitted Egyptian cotton blend, processing what it must be like to think a team of trained ex-marines and a bloodthirsty personal assistant that looked forward to encounters with homicidal psychopaths with a poor sense of humor was anything like normal.

But they’ve been through this routine enough that he lets himself respond to the ridiculous automatically, “Says the man who’s been kidnapped by so-called villains like a dozen times.”

He’s read enough online to know that a dozen is a conservative estimate.

Lex Luthor lives larger than life in the eyes of the press. He dines with royalty and pushes new technology in bio-engineering and buys out another subsidiary and pits himself against superhumans and aliens from other worlds and _Superman_ himself. It’s mind boggling just how much of a magnet for trouble the man next to him actually is. And honestly, it's probably surprising he isn't attacked more.

Lex barks a laugh and it’s a short burst of air, clipped with a certain kind of condescension.

“And yet here I sit,” His grin widens into something wicked. Predatory. “I can’t really say the same for them.”

Clark frowns at that and catches himself rubbing at his chest in nervous habit. Habit, because it’s been long enough now that he’s found himself repeating things that are comfortable, forming routines.

It draws Lex’s eyes and his smile returns back to a normal, vague indent. Clark’s classified it as the idle amusement of the incredibly rich, distant, but the sharp lines of the other man’s face seem softer. “I hear the surgery went well.”

Clark snorts. He suspects the other man knows more about his treatments than Clark did himself, having arranged all of it personally.  Still, he smiles and his hand slows to press over the healing incision mark that holds the small metal device that kept his seizures at bay. “Yeah, it’s been great.”

“That’s good,” Lex says.

“That, uh,” Clark coughs slightly, hand going up to his face and finger sliding up his nose in some foreign gesture. He drops his hand, staring at it blankly, “That actually brings up something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Really?” And now Lex sounds amused.

Clark takes a breath, “I was thinking, since I've been doing so well that, uh, it was time for me to leave? Find a place, continue my treatment? Uh, outside?"

Time expands but the other man doesn’t seem to react outside of crossing his legs, hand grasping his ankle. “That’s a big step, Clark. Do you know where you want to go?”

“Smallville,” Clark says hurriedly,“I’ve read everything there is to know about it but I want to go and see it with my own eyes. See the farm, visit my parents’ graves, meet the people that I used to know. Maybe it'll spark something.”

Lex taps gloved fingers against the fabric of his pants, and there it is – Clark’s heart clenches at the small frown that crosses the other man’s face, braces himself when Lex opens his mouth, “I know this is hard, Clark, but here you have access to all of the treatment you need. Smallville doesn’t have near the same resources if something were to go wrong. I just don’t know if your body is ready for that kind of risk.”

“I am,” Clark insists. “I am _so_ ready. I haven’t had seizures since the surgery and I’m walking fine now, for the most part,” he tacks on with a mumble.

“And I can take Welsh! He knows how to do my physical therapy and keep track of my medicine. Outside of that, O’Toole hasn’t needed to run me through the gauntlet for weeks. She even said it should be possible for me to try outpatient treatment.” The gauntlet being the obstacle course of invasive scans and tests that Dr. O’Toole used to monitor his recovery and adjust his treatment. Clark was glad that was becoming a less necessary intervention.

“Did she,” Lex muses.

Clark winces. It had been a more _theoretical_ conversation into future possibilities. He pushes forward regardless, “Please, Lex. I’ve got to face the world sometime.”

“You have to understand my perspective on this, Clark. You've been in a coma for two years. One moment you were fine and the next you were,” The man turns back to him, eyes heavy, mouth twisted on a sour thought. “Gone. It made me realize what our friendship was, what I no longer had. To get that back- I don't want to lose it again because we rushed I to something before you were ready. You just woke up. You know I’ll do whatever I have to do to make sure you’re safe.”

There it is again, the whisper of something _more_ that he can’t quite figure out in all of the interactions he’s had with the other man. Luthor’s voice is low, but the words are said with an intensity that hits Clark in the chest uncomfortably.

It raises other questions that he hasn’t found it in him to ask. The history between them that only one can remember is a heavy weight sometimes.

There’s a spark of _something_ in his gut that reacts to Luthor’s words, something desperate and he’s trembling with it even as he flounders to identify what it is, where it’s even coming from.

His fingers dig into his palms and for a moment the terror _or is it rage_ feels all consuming and he can feel it climbing up his throat. He doesn't want Lex to say no. He's afraid of what will happen if he does.

“You can’t,” and Clark’s voice is shaky. He hates that he can't keep it steady, can't hide this frantic thing beating in his chest. “Lex, you can’t keep me down here.”

Shame rises to mix with it, and it’s a heady feeling that slips out of his control. A rush of emotion that he’s tried to keep tame pushes past his defenses, and the staccato beats of his heart are thunder to his ears.

He’s breathing in and out frantically, eyes clenched shut. “I’ve tried to be fine. I’ve _tried._ And you’ve done so much to keep me happy – but I need out. I need to be able to walk outside, to see the world and put my life back together. Find some place in it with –” He swallows heavily, “how I am now. You can’t protect me forever.”

Silence echoes after his words and he works on reigning in his unsteady breath.

“Maybe you’re right,” Lex muses. His voice is low as he looks over the garden, weighing the request. Relief floods through him. “Maybe I’ve been overly cautious, let the last two years hit me harder than I thought. I just-”

“I don’t want to lose you again,” Lex finally says, and he sounds tired.

“You won’t,” Clark says immediately, “Of course you won’t. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You say that now, but you don’t remember what the world is, what it turns people into.”

The words are bitter but Lex is still miles away, looking outward, his face a shadow of contemplation. Clark traces his outline, floundering.

“I’m not going to change, Lex. I’ll always be your friend.”

It's a promise that he means, but the hollow spot in his head suddenly feels ominously large.

“I’ve heard that before,” his friend says lowly. Lex stares down at his gloved hand and slowly closes his fingers into a fist.

“Maybe we both shouldn’t make promises we can’t keep,” Lex says, sharp as a blade as he stands up in one quick motion, smoothing the wrinkles out of his shirt in an automatic gesture.

The energy in the room is different now, darker, and it reminds Clark that Lex is more than just his friend, reminds him of what he’s been reading online. The other man paces forward with his back to him, a restless type of energy in the line of his shoulders.

“Lex –” Clark starts hesitantly, no longer sure where he stands, where Lex is. Something stirs in his stomach once more.

Lex exhales, and then turns back to him with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m sorry, Clark. It’s been a long day and I let it get to me. Of course, it's your choice. If you think you’re ready, you're ready. I'll make the arrangements."

* * *

 

Clark leaves for Smallville in the beginning of October. And even though his campaign is nearing its final countdown, Lex clears his schedule to drive Clark down personally. Clark reads it for the apology it is.

The car that’s sitting at the curb has Clark laugh out loud, “Really?” he says, excitement slipping into his voice as he steps up to the dark convertible, cane making a tapping noise that clicks in a slight echo in the insular courtyard.

“Hey,” Lex says, in mock offense. “It’s our first real roadtrip in a decade. I figured a throwback to the golden days was called for. Clark meet Roxy, the 1966 Jaguar cabriolet of my more, ahem, rebellious years.”

“Roxy?” Clark asks in strangled amusement.

“Don’t laugh,” Lex warns, pulling keys from his pocket, “You’re the one who named her.”

It startles Clark into silence, and he takes another look at the small convertible in front of him. The exterior, which he’d first thought was black was actually a dark green with a soft beige top made of material that looks like canvas. The car is detailed with a reflective chrome that lines the front windshield, headlights and door handles elegantly. The wired tire rims match with an equally clean reflective surface despite their close proximity to the ground. Clark doesn’t have to be familiar with cars to know that this one is probably in the 99th percentile of cars. Knowing what he knows about Lex, that’s not surprising.

It’s the first tangible piece of their history Clark’s seen, outside of Lex himself, since waking up. Clark runs his fingers along the front hood, following the slow curve up dark metal to chrome lining of the door handle, tries again to imagine the relationship between a twenty year old heir to a fortune 500 company and a small town farm boy, “Why Roxy?”

“Beats me,” Lex says with a shrug, “I recommended Lana with the argument that a car would be easier to love but you never did listen.”

“Lana?” he asks, flabbergasted.

“Lana Lang, a rather enduring crush you had. Let’s just say it did not end well.” He claps Clark on the back before stepping forward, moving around the front of the vehicle.

The car is also very small, two seats at a maximum. “Where’s Welsh going to sit?”

“He’ll meet us there,” Lex is unapologetic as he opens the door of the cabriolet with an old fashioned click. For Clark, it’s something more, because he hasn’t been without Welsh since he woke up.

He nods for Clark to do the same, eyebrow raised expectantly as he slides into the driver’s seat, pulling Clark out of his stupor. The metal of the door is cold through his glove, and it’s heavier than he’d have thought, pulling it open. Lex leans over to take the cane from him and slide it in the small space behind their seats when he follows.

Clark falls into a low leather seat the color of coffee with heavy cream and just as smooth. The Jaguar purrs to life beneath them as Lex turns his key in the ignition, gloved hand on the polished wood gear stick and the other, matching for once in the cold weather, on the wheel. It’s a low vibration that Clark can’t help but admire. The interior smells like leather and the faint wisp of cold metal and citrus.

“It’s a shame leaving the top up,” Lex says with what sounds like honest regret as he messes with some of the gleaming knobs on the car’s front panel. “We’ll have to take it out again when it gets warmer.”

Promises of future drives notwithstanding, that Lex is taking the time to drive Clark to Smallville personally with no Welsh looming over his shoulder is enough fuel to keep him happy for a while.

Lex eyes his wide grin warily as they exit the hotel courtyard, “What?”

Clark’s grin gets impossibly wider, “Nothing.”

Heat has already begun to push the winter chill out of the car and he pulls off the gloves Lex gave him - Italian, hand sewn and obnoxiously expensive - to relish in the warm air blowing from circular chrome vents. It’s a high quality temperature control that wasn’t quite factory standard in the sixties.

He’s drawn to study the city as they drive through. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of it. The buildings are sleek, modern feats of architecture, and even as winter looms in the sidewalks are full of people bundled in heavy coats, heads ducked into raised collars and that mixed with the raising steam from car exhausts and sidewalk grates. It creates such a satisfying image that he can’t tear his eyes away.

His eyes trail from a dark skinned man in a heavy threaded jacket and earmuffs to the white marble and reflective glass of the Metropolis National Bank protected by two giant stone lions as they pass, over the open park of bare trees and straw dry grass that circle a large statue of a man surrounded by children, a mother and her daughter in matching tan coats and bright red knitted caps sitting on the bench reading from the same book. He finds suddenly that he can understand why Clark Kent lived here and wrote puff pieces on additions to the city library system. Why Metropolis was his home.

The longer he stares the more he picks up on the nuanced ways the scenery seems to change. Four months awake and already this is as far as he’s ever been. Businesses becoming smaller, made of different, older materials, and Clark can close his eyes and picture the history of each space.

“Don’t forget to breathe,” Lex finally says from the driver seat as he merges onto a freeway, “Delaware to Kansas is a long way to go without air.”

Clark laughs, stretching out a numb hand that had been splayed against freezing glass. “It’s all so amazing though, isn’t it? Look at all of these people.”

“Yes, it’s called a city. I hear there’s thousands of them, in every state, even,” Lex replies in fond exasperation and Clark rolls his eyes, “Shut up.”

Buildings no longer reach for the sky but spread out in a slow crawl over the land, and the sky is so much larger when not surrounded by giants. In the winter, it’s a pale grey with wisps of cloud that merge and blend into a grey haze.

When Clark looks in the side mirror, Metropolis stands behind them - an arch of gleaming buildings reaching upwards like the fingers of a dozen hands. From this distance, he can see a gap in the skyline that causes him to crane his head back to look closer. There’s an absence of buildings, a scar that cuts a jagged edge across the northeastern section of the city.

He can make out the thin lines of construction cranes that fill the space where towering skyscrapers used to be, close to what must be Delaware Bay. His apartment complex had been somewhere in that empty space, he thinks. Hundreds of thousands of people had been in that empty space. Two years had weathered the damage, and filled some of the space with newly constructed replicas of what stood before, but the evidence of a battle was apparent even after all this time.

“It’s hard to believe I used to be able to make this trip in a day,” Lex muses and Clark turns back forward as they pass through another caravan of cars, weaving in and out of the tiny spaces between vehicles with unnerving ease, “Although I did have a more liberal driving style in my twenties.”

Considering how they’re currently driving, that should be more alarming that it actually is. There’s a level of control to how Lex drives, despite his bored expression and casual hand at two o’clock on the wheel. It’s in his reaction times when another vehicle suddenly swerves into their lane and the ease at which he maneuvers through tightly knit traffic bound by the normal laws of man.

“Have you been recently,” Clark asks, curious, “To Smallville, I mean.”

Lex takes a moment he doesn’t need to swerve through a series of box trucks and one very old Volkswagen with a bumper hanging by a thread of duct tape and hope.  “No. It’s been years.”

“Oh.”

“The mansion’s still staffed,” Lex elaborates after another long pause. His hand taps against the polished wood of the steering wheel in rare bout of self expression, “But I’ve never had the same reasons to go back that you did. Still, my first factory is there. It’s not a bad idea to tour the facility, reminisce on LexCorp’s early beginnings. The press will have a field day.”

Leave it to Lex to turn Clark’s return home into something economically valuable for his campaign. Clark’s just happy he found an excuse.

The landscape flies by and Clark remains mesmerized for hours, listening to Lex’s slow drawl of information about different locations and their history. They stop for lunch at a retro deli just outside of Pittsburg that catches Clark’s attention, Lex pulling them into a worn gravel parking lot that crunches underneath the wheels.

Clark opts for the signature one pound pastrami on rye, fries, something called Marge’s Matzo Ball, and a coke while Lex takes a more critical look of the menu before selecting the smoked turkey breast and a coffee.

He spends the time in between food admiring the cheap vinyl seats, a classic red, and listening to the seventies and eighties playlist that crackles through a cheap speaker overhead. Lex spends the time eyeing the same space with a wary sort of distaste that has Clark laugh.

“Why’d you even agree to stop here?”

 “This is your road trip, Clark. Your choice. And besides,” he says as he pulls a napkin from the dispenser, placing it on one knee in a slow motion as if skeptical of its actual ability to preform the standard function but stubborn enough to follow through with it. “Any place nicer than this and I’d probably be recognized. It’s nice to travel incognito every once in a while.”

Clark grins and enjoys the greasiness of the fries while they last. He almost doesn't even mind the pills that follow, taken under Lex's careful eye.

When they peel out of the parking lot (and honestly, Clark is beginning to suspect Lex enjoys his driving a little too much) Lex’s phone vibrates against the center console. Lex, with an apologetic glance towards him that Clark waves off, places a Bluetooth speaker in his ear and answers it with a curt, “Luthor.”

“Yes,” Lex eyes him once more, listening to the voice on the other end of the line. “Don’t give them the breathing room,” he finally instructs. What follows is a steady influx of campaign instructions and business acumen that Clark has learned to tune out. Lex’s voice is a solid presence, curt and unyeilding as he speaks with his manager or his public information director or whoever it is this time and Clark let’s it wash over him instead, as he continues to gorge himself on the landscape.

Between the low rumble, “Have Mark contact Richards about the Washington proposal, if we can get him playing ball. . .” the smooth vibrations of the car underneath him and lull of fall scenery that passes them by, Clark dozes off. He doesn’t wake up until later, surrounding by sky that starts to pick up a purplish hue of darkness.

There’s a crick in his neck from the position he slept in and his mouth is suspiciously dry, meaning he probably slept with his mouth gaping open. Great.

He straightens as much as he’s able and his body complains vehemently. He pushes the complaints out of mind, blinking through a heaviness that remains in his eyelids. The interstate has broken into one lane in each direction separated by a large median of grass. The road weaves in and out, civilization giving way to trees and dying grass sometime in his sleep.

They stop shortly after that, in Indiana, but not in Indianapolis or any other large city that Clark would have expected. No, to his surprise, or maybe not, after the deli experience, Lex pulls into a rather small parking lot outside of a flat one story motel that has a definite nineties vibe just outside of an exit sign that named the city Cloverdale.

The vacancy sign is painted on rather than illuminated just underneath boldly printed “Greencastle Inn” over a print of a setting sun. The building exterior is a quazi-mixture of sandstone, and red and beige stucco with a carport over the entrance held up by white metal poles that twist slowly. It’s dated, but with a fresh coat of paint and cleanly cut shrubbery that indicate it’s well cared for.

“When in Rome,” Lex says, even as he eyes the lobby entrance dubiously. As someone that’s spent the last four months underground, Clark can only trust the other man’s judgement. Lex takes a moment, as if to brace himself, “Wait here, I’ll get our room keys.”

He slides on a pair of designer sunglasses before he steps outside, possibly as camouflage, though the bald head and general demeanor give him away in an instant, so Clark suspects it’s more for emphasis. Shutting the door behind him, he buttons up his coat efficiently and steps into the lobby like a man about to negotiate a trade deal.

To his infinite amusement, a sleek black Mercedes-Benz sedan with windows tinted black parks opposite their convertible, which now makes the total of cars sharing the space two,  and both Mercy and Welsh step out, equally stone-faced. Clark waves at the both of them and they both nod slightly in his direction.

By the time Lex returns, he’s able to pass off the room keys to Welsh, who takes them and the luggage inside.

They settle into adjoining rooms with the speckled dark carpeting and queen sized beds covered in tired blue bed spreads. Clark falls onto his with an gush of air, cane clutched in hand and nearly falls alseep then and there.  He probably would have if Welsh hadn't come in to walk him through a few stretches that pull at achingly stiff muscles and ensure he took his night prescriptions. 

He hears Lex on the phone again in the room over, and is surprised when the other man sticks his head through the door thirty minutes later with several boxes of pizza in hand and a two liter of dark soda. They sit cross legged on the bed, feet nearly touching, and eat slice after slice, settling in to watch Die Hard with a Vengeance after searching the limited selection of channels on the room's TV. There's something about it that feels so familiar that he can't help but feel comfortable in his own skin for what must be the first time in memory. He sinks into sleep to the sound of explosions and Jeremy Irons' deep voice slipping into an evil monologue and for once doesn't dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And my outline continues to stretch every time I write. Since I'm already posting shorter chapters than planned this is turning into a real slow burn with the plot. It feels loose, but having not written anything in ages, I'm gonna take what I can get and be happy. 
> 
> To the kind readers who have come this far, _aw shucks, guys_ thanks for reading. I hypothesize a substantial increase of plot via a notable character's big entrance in three to four chapters.


End file.
